The Use of Nationalist Propaganda in the Struggle for 'Northern Epirus'

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Power politics and nationalist discourse in the struggle for 'Northern Epirus': 1919-1921 Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos

To cite this Article Triadafilopoulos, Triadafilos(2000) 'Power politics and nationalist discourse in the struggle for 'Northern Epirus': 1919-1921', Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 2: 2, 149 — 162 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/713683343 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/713683343

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Power politics and nationalist discourse in the struggle for ‘Northern Epirus’: 1919–1921*

TRIADAFILOS TRIADAFILOPOULOS

On the surface it seemed reasonable: let the People decide. It was in fact ridiculous because the people cannot decide until someone decides who the people are. Ivor Jennings

Introduction By most counts, the validity of nationalist propaganda and its use in scholarly debates is limited. Overtly nationalist literature serves a political purpose and need not conform to general standards of scholarly writing. However, to be effective, it must advance a particular cause while remaining within the realm of seemingly ‘legitimate’ discourse. In other words, its success depends on how well the nation’s advocates understand and anticipate their audience’s precon- ceptions, values, and worldview. In short, nationalist literature must possess the potential to persuade. Consequently, even the most partisan and seemingly preposterous nationalist writings may illuminate particular questions or debates by providing the discerning reader with unique insights into the ideals of nationalists and their target audience. This paper examines the writings of Greek and Albanian nationalists regarding the question of ‘Northern Epirus’1 between 1919 and 1921. Part of the material under consideration was originally published in pamphlet form and was presented to representatives of the Great Powers at the Paris Peace Conference in February 1918. The remainder consists of ofcial statements made by both the Greek and Albanian governments. At the Conference, both

Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:00 3 April 2010 sides sought to expand their state’s territory through revisions to the Greco- Albanian border. Differing interpretations of the ethnic identity and national consciousness of the territory’s population were used to support their claims.

*I am grateful for helpful comments from and conversations with Elzbieta Matynia, Adamantia Pollis, Barbara Syrrakos, Jane Cowan, Isa Blumi, and Shaun Young. I would also like to thank Dr. Vassilis Fouskas and the journal’s two anonymous reviewers for their criticisms and suggestions. Special thanks to Tina Tzatzanis for research assistance. An earlier version of this paper was read at the Modern Greek Studies Association’s 1997 Symposium in Kent, Ohio. 1‘Northern Epirus’ extends northward from the northern boundary of Greece to just south of Valona on the Adriatic to the lakes of Ochrid and Prespa in the east. It constitutes approximately one-fourth of the total area of Albania and includes the towns of Gjirokaster (Argyrocastro), Korce (Koritza), and Himare (Chimara), as well as the port of Sarande (Santi Quaranta). See Laurie Kain Hart and Kristina Budina, ‘ “Northern Epiros”: the Greek minority in southern Albania’, Cultural Survival Quarterly, 3, Summer 1995, p. 55.

ISSN 1461-3190 print/ISSN 1469-963X online/00/020149–14 Ó 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/1461319002000041 8 150 Triadalos Triadalopoulos

However, the contested region possessed a mixed population that did not easily t either Greek or Albanian ethno-national categories. As such, the Great Powers were amenable to arguments ostensibly presented to make sense of this ‘complicated case’.2 The general climate of international relations also worked to the nationalists’ advantage. The victorious Allies were committed to carving up the remnants of the fallen German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires. Woodrow Wilson’s championing of the right to self-determination and equitable treatment for small states held out the promise that territorial claims constructed around the question of nationality would be considered favourably by the Great Powers.3 Indeed, for the rst time in the history of European diplomacy, the primacy of the nation was recognized as the key ordering principle of states and interstate relations.4 Not surprisingly, then, Greek and Albanian nationalists seized the opportunity to present their positions to the world’s self-appointed arbiters. After presenting some background to both the problem of ‘Northern Epirus’ and the role of nationalism at the Paris Peace Conference, I examine the Albanian and Greek sides’ arguments, citing similarities and differences in their demands and rationales. Specically, I analyse each side’s conception of the nation and note how it was tailored to meet the criteria of the Great Powers. Both Albanian and Greek nationalist writers presented arguments that would resonate with individuals wielding power. Their espousal of what today would be dubbed ‘ethnic nationalism’ captured their era’s understanding of the legitimate grounds for claiming the right to self-determination. In other words, their claims corresponded to the ‘universal code’ of nationalist discourse, understood and employed by diplomats, political leaders, journalists, and scholars. Hence, I contend that these pamphlets tell us something about the quality, status, and general reception of nationalism during this period. The paper’s conclusion summarizes the study’s arguments and ndings while also drawing attention to the role of nationalist discourse in contemporary cases. Before proceeding, it is worth noting that this paper does not claim to present an exhaustive appraisal of all relevant materials. The difculty in obtaining such sources cannot be overstated.5 A truly comprehensive study would require archival work and a thorough review of newspaper articles, editorials, and other related material in several languages. Hence, what will be presented should be taken as a model for further research and analysis. Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:00 3 April 2010

The ‘question of Northern Epirus’ from 1912 to 1919: a brief sketch Greek claims to ‘Northern Epirus’ preceded the First World War and were present from the very founding of the Albanian State. Albania was granted independence by the Great Powers at the London Conference of Ambassadors

2E. P. Stickney, Southern Albania or Northern Epirus in European International Affairs, 1912–1923, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 1926, p. 75. 3For a sample of Wilson’s rhetoric see H. W. V. Temperley (ed.), A History of the Peace Conference of Paris Vol. III, Oxford University Press, London, 1920, p. 53. 4E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992, p. 131. 5A comprehensive bibliography of this material simply does not exist; the closest one gets is contained in Stickney, op. cit. Themes—Power politics and nationalist discourse 151

in December 1912. The Conference appointed two commissions to delimit Albania’s northern frontier with Serbia and Montenegro and its southern frontier with Greece. Greece’s success during the Balkan Wars rekindled its dream of reconstituting the Byzantine Empire in the form of a greater Greek state.6 Proponents of the Megali Idea (Great Idea) argued that all of Epirus, including those districts claimed by the Albanians, should be ceded to Greece.7 They defended their claim by arguing that the population of this territory was overwhelmingly Greek, both in descent and national consciousness.8 Albania countered by calling for the incorporation of Northern and Southern Epirus, or ‘Chamuria’, into Albania, on similar ethno-national grounds. Both sides ignored the fact that the territory they demanded contained a mixed population. According to a British Foreign Ofce research report:

Under Ottoman rule, before Greece became an independent Kingdom with a frontier to defend, the population of the whole district of Epirus seem to have thought of themselves as Moslems and Christians [rather] than as Greeks and Albanians. Then, as now, there would have been extreme difculty in sorting out pure Greek from pure Albanian, especially north of the present [1944] frontier, and probably many of them were of mixed blood. (In fact, the ancestral stock even of those sections of the population which appear today as denitely Greek or denitely Albanian is perhaps identical.)9

Ultimately, the Greek–Albanian border was delimited in a rather capricious manner. After the international commission made up of representatives of the six Great Powers (Great Britain, France, Austria–Hungary, Italy, Germany, Russia) failed to reach consensus,10 Britain’s Sir Edward Grey proposed a compromise which satised the Powers and largely ignored both the Greek and Albanian positions.11 The Protocol of Florence, which established the

6See G. Augustinos, Consciousness and History: Nationalist Critics of Greek Society, 1897–1914, East European Monographs, Boulder, CO, 1977, p. 3. 7M. Vickers, The Albanians: A Modern History, I. B. Tauris, London, 1995, p. 79. 8As Charles and Barbara Jelevich have noted, the emphasis of the Megali Idea was not on acquiring territory that was, strictly speaking, ethnically Greek, but rather on obtaining lands in which Hellenic civilization was believed to be predominant, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804–1920, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1977, p. 77. Also see A. Pollis, ‘Notes on nationalism and human rights in Greece’, Journal of Modern Hellenism, 4, Autumn 1987, p. 151. 9Britain, Foreign Ofce, ‘The Greek Albanian Frontier’, 26 August 1944, Public Archives of Canada, Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:00 3 April 2010 Document No. [R 4346/39/90/1943], File 153-G (S), p. 3. It is worth noting that even this relatively dispassionate and neutral British commentator adhered to the notion that ‘pure’ ethnic categories did in fact exist, although in this case the ‘mixed blood’ of the people made them poor tools for ‘sorting out’ the present population. 10According to Stickney: ‘From what little is known of the acts of the commission, it appears certain that an impasse developed, the delegates aligning themselves into two camps: those of the Triple Alliance [Italy, Austria—Hungary, Germany] maintained that the districts were Albanian, while the Triple Entente [Britain, France, Russia] took the point of view that, although the older generations in a number of villages spoke Albanian, the entire younger generation was Greek in its industrial and intellectual life, its sentiments, and aspirations.’ Stickney, op. cit., p. 38. 11Grey himself admitted that: ‘[W]hen the whole comes to be stated it will be open on many points to a great deal of criticism from anyone with local knowledge who looks at it purely on the merits of the locality itself. It is to be borne in mind that in making the agreement the primary essential was to preserve agreement between the Great Powers themselves, and if the agreement about Albania has secured that it has done the work which is most essential in the interests of the peace of Europe.’ See Britain, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 1913, LVI, 2282ff. 152 Triadalos Triadalopoulos

Greek–Albanian border, left all of ‘Northern Epirus’ within Albania and called for the Greeks to evacuate their military forces from the region.12 In return for its co-operation, Greece was awarded several Aegean islands, which it had also claimed at the Conference of Ambassadors.13 The Greek Epirotes, however, did not let the matter rest. In February 1914 the ‘Autonomous Northern Epirus Movement’ led by George Christaki Zographos, a former Foreign Minister of Greece, mounted an armed resistance to Albanian rule.14 On 2 March 1914, the rebels declared the independence of ‘Northern Epirus’. Fighting between irregular military bands was brought to a formal end in May 1914 with the signing of the Convention of Corfu. The Convention granted autonomy to the Greek Epirotes and allowed for an ethnically mixed police force and access to education and religious services in the Greek language.15 However, the Convention was never tested. In August 1914 the First World War broke out and in October, at the request of the Allies, Greek troops occupied ‘Northern Epirus’.16 Greece quickly seized the moment and invited representatives from ‘Northern Epirus’ to sit in the Greek parlia- ment in Athens. Shortly thereafter, the Greek Monarchy issued a decree announcing the formal union of ‘Northern Epirus’ with the Kingdom of Greece.17 The Allies rejected these policies and ordered Northern Epirote deputies to relinquish their seats in the Greek legislature. The secret Treaty of London, signed on 26 April 1915, further complicated the question of Albania’s post-war future. In exchange for entering the war on the side of the Allies, Article 6 of the Treaty granted Italy full sovereignty over the Albanian port of Vlore (Valona), the island of Saseno and surrounding territory sufcient to assure defence of these points.18 By Article 7, Albania was to be reduced to an autonomous (not independent) entity encompassing only the central portion of its 1913 territory.19 Italy was to permit Greece to acquire ‘Northern Epirus’ while also allowing for the partition of Albania’s eastern territories by Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece. Italy eventually rejected the cession of ‘Northern Epirus’ and in 1917 declared that all of Albania should be united, declared independent, and placed under Italian protection.20 In the meantime, France had occupied and set up an Albanian Republic in the town of Korce (Koritza). As the war drew to a close, Albania was occupied by

12L. S. Stavrianos, The Balkans Since 1453, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1958, p. 541. Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:00 3 April 2010 13G. B. Leon, ‘Greece and the Albanian question at the outbreak of the First World War’, Balkan Studies, 1, 1970, p. 63. 14See B. P. Papadakis, Histoire Diplomatique de la Question Nord-Epirote (1912–1957), J. Alevropoulos, Athens, 1958, pp. 24–29; B. Kondis, Greece and Albania: 1908–1914, Institute for Balkan Studies, Thessaloniki, 1976, pp. 124–125; A. Tounta-Phergade, Themata Hellenikes Diplomatikes Historias: 1912–1934 (Themes in Greek Diplomatic History: 1912–1934), Parateretes, Athens, 1987, p. 57. 15Stickney, op. cit., p. 49; Kondis, op. cit., p. 131. Also see C. Skenderis, O Voreioepirotikos Agon: 1914 (The North Epirus Struggle: 1914), Athens, 1929, pp. 127–129; and K. Manolopoulou-Varvitsiote, Synchrona Provlemata Meionotiton sta Valkania (Contemporary Minority Problems in the Balkans), Eirini, Athens, 1989, pp. 92–93. 16Stickney, op. cit., p. 57. 17Ibid., p. 62. 18H. W. V. Temperley (ed.), A History of the Peace Conference of Paris Vol. IV, Oxford University Press, London, 1920, p. 340. 19Ibid., p. 341. 20D. Dakin, The Unication of Greece: 1770–1923, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1972, p. 222. Themes—Power politics and nationalist discourse 153

French, Italian, Serbian, and Greek troops.21 The future of the country was beholden to the conicting interests of the occupying forces.

Triumph of the nation-state? The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 Woodrow Wilson’s championing of the rights of ‘small and oppressed peoples’ at the close of the First World War symbolized the triumph of the nation-state ideal in international affairs. As a consequence of the War, the age of European multiethnic empires had drawn to a denitive end. Wilson heralded the new era by declaring that ‘[n]o people must be forced under sovereignty under which it does not wish to live. No territory must change hands except for the purpose of securing those who inhabit it a fair chance of life and liberty’.22 Wilson’s advocacy of the right of self-determination was also indicative of the dramatic shift in international relations following the nal collapse of the European ‘balance of power’ system. In its place Wilson made the principle of national self-determination the basis for … a new world order. In his mind there was no gap between national self-determination and democracy … and between both these concepts and the idea of a self-polic- ing system of collective security to replace the discredited system of international power politics.23 The guidelines of Wilson’s New World Order were presented in both the ‘Fourteen Points’ and the ‘Four Points’. Point Five of the ‘Fourteen Points’ called for the [a]bsolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined (emphasis added).24 Similarly, Point Two of the ‘Four Points’ called for [t]he settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of political relationship upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned, and not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire

21For a concise recounting of the diplomatic wrangling between Italy, France, and Greece see G. Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:00 3 April 2010 B. Leontaritis, Greece and the First World War: From Neutrality to Intervention, 1912–1918, East European Monographs, Boulder, CO, 1990, pp. 321–365. 22‘ Message From President Wilson to Russia, 9 June 1917’, in J. B. Scott (ed.), Ofcial Statements of War Aims and Peace Proposals, December 1916 to November 1918, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC, 1921, pp. 104–105. 23J. Mayall, Nationalism and International Society, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990, p. 44. It is worth noting the hubris that drove Wilson and other architects of the ‘New World order’. As Michael Burns has pointed out, Wilson arrived in Paris accompanied by geographers, statisticians, historians, and political scientists, ‘who pledged to work like “engineers” on a “new construction project” ’. As we shall see below, this blind trust in the scientic and rational means of settling territorial disputes was quickly seized upon by nationalist advocates, who in turn used the language of their Western counterparts. M. Burns, ‘Disturbed spirits: minority rights and New World Orders, 1919 and the 1990s’, in S. F. Wells Jr and P. B. Smith (eds), New European Orders, 1919 and 1991, The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington, DC, 1996, pp. 44–46. 24R. S. Baker, Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement Vol. III Original Documents of the Peace Conference, Peter Smith, Gloucester, MA, 1960, p. 43. 154 Triadalos Triadalopoulos

a different settlement for the sake of its own exterior inuence or mastery (emphasis added).25

Point Three of the ‘Four Points’ and Point One of the ‘Fourteen Points’ renounced the secretive, unprincipled character of the ‘old diplomacy’. In its place, Wilson requested that all states ‘consent … to be governed … by the same principles of honour and of respect for the common law of civilized society that govern the individual citizens of all modern States’.26 Wilson’s vision was shared by many, particularly in Britain and the United States. The failure of the ‘old diplomacy’ was often cited by journalists and academics as the root cause of the Great War.27 Support for the rights of small states was combined with a general ideological consensus regarding the ‘natural’ division of humanity into constituent nations.28 Hence, the ‘people’ entitled to self-determination were invariably national communities dened according to ethnic criteria.29 Potential nations and ethnic minorities quickly became the focal points of international interest. However, as a contemporary observer aptly noted: ‘Wilsonian principles did not, in themselves, comprise a body of doctrine sufciently intelligible and precise to be interpreted in diplomatic terms.’30 Consequently, national aspirations were manipulated and used as bargaining counters in Great Power relations.31 In reality, the principle of self-determination could only be used in an ad hoc manner that reected the interests of the Great Powers.32 Thus, to be effective, both statesmen and nationalists had to frame their arguments in accordance with the grander aspirations of the Great Powers. This clash between Wilsonian principles and traditional Great Power politics was clearly present in the case of ‘Northern Epirus’. On the one hand, advocates of Greek and Albanian interests argued that the principle of self-determination should be employed to settle the dispute. Conversely, both sides also recognized that the Great Powers would employ some amount of ‘back- room’ bargaining.33 As a result, both sides structured their arguments so as to appeal to the Great Powers’ new-found principles and traditional strategic interests. The key to their success, it was felt, lay in convincing the Powers that their proposals were both genuine and conducive to international peace and stability.

25Ibid., pp. 45–46. Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:00 3 April 2010 26Ibid., p. 46. 27For a particularly good example of this type of argument see ‘Big and small nations: a plea for new methods in Paris’, The New Europe, Vol. XII 144, 17 July 1919, pp. 1–6. 28See Hobsbawm, op. cit., pp. 107–108. 29K. S. Shehadi, Ethnic Self-determination and the Break-up of States, Adelphi Paper # 283, International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 1993, p. 16. 30H. W. V. Temperley (ed.), A History of the Peace Conference of Paris Vol. VI, Oxford University Press, London, 1920, p. 543. See also G. Murray, ‘Self-determination of minorities’, Journal of the British Institute of International Affairs, 1, January 1922, pp. 10–11. 31P. Smith, ‘Introduction’, in P. Smith (ed.), Ethnic Groups in International Relations: Comparative Studies on Governments and Non-dominant Ethnic Groups in Europe, 1850–1940, New York University Press, New York, 1991, p. 6. 32Shehadi, op. cit., p. 15. Also see M. Biddiss, ‘Nationalism and the molding of modern Europe’, Journal of the Historical Association, 1, 1994, pp. 423–424. 33This point was hammered home by the Bolshevik’s publication of the secret Treaty of London in November 1917. Themes—Power politics and nationalist discourse 155

The nation as historical entity: the Albanian case Mehmed Bey Konitza was an inuential gure in the Pan-Albanian Federation of America, and Christo and Sevasti Dako were leaders of the Boston-based Albanian National Party. As well as being included in Albania’s ofcial presentation to the Paris Peace Conference, their texts were distributed to interested individuals and groups in the United States and Britain. One such group was the London-based Anglo-Albanian Society, whose membership included academics, clergy, and journalists.34 The Society helped to distribute Albanian nationalist literature through meetings and press releases. Interest- ingly, the group was composed exclusively of British citizens not of Albanian origin.35 The chief claim made by all three Albanian writers centred on the continuity and homogeneity of the Albanian ‘race’. In the words of Sevasti K. Dako:

It is admitted today as an historical fact that the Albanian people is the most ancient, the most compact, the most homogeneous, and the most important factor of all the Balkan nations. His origin and his strong national consciousness, that of being Albanian by race, language, customs and feeling, distinguish him entirely from the neighboring races, and give him that proper individuality, which enabled him to resist for centuries all endeavours of being denationalized and assimilated.36

Likewise, Mehmed Bey Konitza argued that Albania’s division into three major religious groupings—Muslim, Greek Orthodox Christian, and Roman Catholic Christian—did not in any way divide the Albanian people. Rather, according to Konitza, ‘Albania [was] perhaps the only country in Europe where religion … produced no dissension among the inhabitants, who remained united at every period of their national history.’37 The Albanian writers traced their nations’ lineage back to ancient times, arguing that they were the descendants of the Illyrians. They contended that invasion and conquest by the Byzantine, Roman, and Ottoman Empires had not unduly affected the purity of their people. For despite these setbacks, the Albanians ‘retained their language and their national manners and usages, and remained a distinct people with a distinct national consciousness’.38 Even more importantly, they argued that the Byzantines, whose Greek culture and civiliza-

Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:00 3 April 2010 tion dominated Epirus for fourteen centuries, did not inuence the Albanians in any fundamental way.39 According to these writers, the Albanian people were genuinely distinct, unlike neighbouring Slavs and Greeks whose lineage was marred by intermarriage. This purity made the Albanians a superior

34Stickney, op. cit., p. 91. 35Ibid. 36S. K. Dako, Albania’s Rights, Hopes and Aspirations, Atheneum, Boston, 1918, p. 3. 37M. B. Konitza, ‘The Albanian question’, International Conciliation, 138, May 1919, p. 747. 38C. A. Dako, The Strength of the National Consciousness of the Albanian People, Atheneum, Boston, 1918, pp. 23–24. In Konitza’s words: ‘Such is Albania’s history. The waves of successive Empires have passed over her, and her people have remained staunch. The rule of Rome and of Byzantium have passed. The Balkan medieval Empires were a mere ripple on the waters of time. The oodtide of the Turkish Empire has ebbed, and Albania remains as a granite crag above the troubled waters.’ Konitza, op. cit., p. 770. 39C. A. Dako, op. cit., p. 25. 156 Triadalos Triadalopoulos

people: ‘their strongly marked racial and linguistic unity … [gives] them a strength, which not all the other races of the Balkan Peninsula possess’.40 The emphasis on purity of descent and racial continuity was used to legitimize Albania’s territorial claims at the Paris Peace Conference. The London Conference of Ambassadors, they argued, had erred in not delimiting Albania’s borders according to its ‘ethnographical limits’. According to Konitza, just boundaries would place parts of Serbia, Montenegro, and all of Epirus within Albania.41 Failure to accede to Albanian demands would in- evitably lead to further instability and bloodshed.42 Peace in the Balkans could only be achieved through strict observation of Wilsonian principles, which would naturally vindicate the Albanians.43 Hence:

Whether the Albanian question be regarded from the point of view of justice or from the political point of view for the sake of the peace of the Balkans, and therefore of Europe, there can be but one solution—the restoration of the Albanian state within its ethnographical limits.44

The Albanian writers’ strategy was to counter claims on their territory by claiming parts of their neighbours’ lands and, in the case of ‘Northern Epirus’, denying the legitimacy of their opponent’s claim altogether. According to Konitza and Sevasti Dako, Greece’s claims to ‘Northern Epirus’ were completely unfounded. Greece demanded ‘Northern Epirus’ simply ‘to shut the mouths of the Albanians … to prevent us from demanding the restitution of South Epirus’.45 Greek claims were reduced to ‘propaganda’ designed to confuse the noble efforts of President Wilson.46 In essence, the Albanians denied the very existence of the Greek minority in ‘Northern Epirus’. Instead they claimed that all of Epirus was exclusively Albanian. If the diplomats in Paris proved to be true to the principles they espoused, the Albanian position on ‘Northern Epirus’ would invariably be vindicated. The ofcial Albanian delegation’s47 presentation to the Great Powers mir- rored that of the pamphleteers. Albanian ofcials also argued that the Albani-

40S. Dako, op. cit., p. 17. It is important to note that Dako’s mentioning of linguistic unity is misleading. In fact, as Miranda Vickers points out: ‘Natural barriers had divided the Albanian people into two distinct groups with different dialects and great variations in their social structures. Those who lived to the North of the Shkumbi river were Ghegs (amongst whom included the Albanians of Kosova). The social organization of the Ghegs was tribal, based upon a tightly knit clan system Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:00 3 April 2010 connecting various isolated homesteads. Those who lived south of the Shkumbi in the lowlands and plains were Tosks, and constituted the bulk of the landless and subsistence-level peasantry. By the time of the Ottoman conquest [1415–1421], the Tosks had abandoned the tribal clan system in favour of a village based social organization.’ See Vickers, op. cit., p. 5. 41Konitza, op. cit., p. 49. 42S. Dako, op. cit., pp. 8–9. 43Konitza, op. cit., pp. 778–779. 44Ibid., p. 779. 45Ibid., p. 774. 46Ibid. 47It should be noted that the Albanians were hampered by the absence of a united diplomatic front at the Peace Conference. Initially, Turkhan Pasha and Prenk Bib Doda accompanied twelve other members of the Provisional Government to Paris. The legitimacy of this delegation was challenged by Essad Pasha, a leading Albanian gure. After a bout of internal wrangling, the ofcial delegation was reconstituted, this time with Mehdi Frasher and Lef Nosi assuming leadership roles. See Stickney, op. cit., pp. 92–93. Themes—Power politics and nationalist discourse 157

ans were a unied people deserving of the right to live together within a single nation-state.48 They supplemented this position by arguing that a strong Albanian state with defensible borders and open trade routes was essential in terms of securing peace in the Balkans. The size of the Greek minority in ‘Northern Epirus’ was downplayed and Greek complaints over the treatment of the ‘Epirotes’ rejected. The Albanians argued that the Greeks were using the minority issue as a pretext for territorial aggrandizement, which, in turn, threatened the stability of the region. Finally, in an attempt to appeal to American public opinion, the Albanian delegation requested that the Confer- ence give a temporary mandate to the government of the United States to occupy and administer the disputed territory. After a year of such an arrangement, a plebiscite could be held to determine the will of the population.49

The nation as ‘civilized community’: the Greek case All of the unofcial pro-Greek texts analysed in this study were written by Nicholas J. Cassavetes, a Private in the United States Army during the First World War and leader of the Pan-Epirotic Union of America. According to its charter, the Union was committed to: [T]he pursuance of union of the entire Northern Epirus with the mother land, Greece: (a) By the enlightenment of the ofcial and public opinions of America on the Hellenic character of the entire Province of North Epirus. (b) By their unalterable determination to protest most vigorously against any attempt to separate any portion of Northern Epirus from the mother-country, Greece.50 Like his Albanian counterparts, Cassavetes published his material in English and solicited the ‘tribunal of the English-speaking world’.51 Above all, he aimed at dispelling the claims of American-based Albanian nationalists. In Cas- savetes’ words, ‘[t]o these contentions of the Albanian propagandists and of misguided Albanophiles, the Epirotes [with Cassavetes presumably in the lead] answer with facts, dates, and numbers’. Cassavetes’ chief argument was that nationality must involve ‘a will to co-operate’.52 In making this argument, he differentiated between ‘German’ and ‘Franco-British’ models of nationalism. The German variant saw race, religion, and language as the determinants of the nation. Conversely, the Franco-British theory emphasized national sentiment. Using the Franco-British model as a Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:00 3 April 2010 guide, Cassavetes argued that by these standards the Albanians had no national consciousness to speak of. As a consequence of this lack of national consciousness, Cassavetes declared that: ‘The Albanian people as a whole does not aspire to a united nation. The Albanians as a whole do not demand that Epirus be included in Albania. They object to a united and constitutional government of Albania.’53

48For a detailed summary of the ofcial Albanian delegation’s presentation at the Paris Peace Conference see Stickney, op. cit., pp. 92–93. 49Ibid., p. 97. 50N. J. Cassavetes, The Question of Northern Epirus at the Peace Conference, Oxford University Press, New York, 1919, p. 117. 51N. J. Cassavetes, Epirus and Albania with a Map, George S. Vellonis, Ltd, London, 1919, p. 2. 52Ibid., p. 22. 53Ibid., p. 26. 158 Triadalos Triadalopoulos

Cassavetes attributed this lack of national consciousness to three factors: (a) the tribal nature of the Albanian people; (b) their religious divisions; and (c) their ‘immaturity’. Regarding the rst point, Cassavetes called on numerous commentaries written by English and French travellers, journalists, and scholars to support his argument.54 According to one of Cassavetes’ sources:

Each [Albanian] tribe hates the other with religious rancor. A war-like nation like the Albanians would have long since won absolute independence and founded a powerful Balkan state, had it not been for the utter absence of any national striving for ideals. During all the centuries of their chequered existence they have never advanced beyond the tribal stage (emphasis added).55

Based on this ‘evidence’ Cassavetes argued that

[i]t was simply shocking to think that a civilized, a cultured, a peaceful, and a progressive people like the Epirotes should have ever been asked, not to say forced, to live and be governed by people who are wanting in the most elementary requisites of self-governing peoples.56

Regarding the question of religious differences among the Albanians, Cas- savetes was unequivocal: religious differences precluded the formation of a ‘true’ Albanian nation.57 This was especially the case in ‘Northern Epirus’, where it was ‘not race or language that separates the two camps, but religion’.58 Cassavetes argued that Northern Epirus was divided into two hostile camps, ‘the Mohammedan Albanian Epirotes, and the Orthodox Greek Epirotes’.59 The Orthodox population had been oppressed by their Albanian Muslim counterparts during the Ottoman period and therefore learned to hide their Greek sentiments: ‘They adopted the dress and language of their oppressors; but they clung to the Christian Orthodox Church, the liturgy of which was in Greek.’60 Clearly, Cassavetes’ argument aimed at countering the Albanian nationalists’ contention that the Orthodox believers in ‘Northern Epirus’ could not be Greek because they were Albanophones. Perhaps the most interesting part of Cassavetes’ argument involves what he considered to be the ‘immaturity’ of the Albanian people. Drawing on the work of scholars such as Arnold Toynbee, he concluded that the Albanians’ lack of ‘civilization’ and development precluded their ability to engage in ‘real’ nationalism. Conversely, Cassavetes argued that Greek nationalism was a

Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:00 3 April 2010 genuine force, which compelled the Greek Epirotes to demand union with Mother Greece.61 Indeed, ‘[t]his … [was] one of the most striking examples of the protective power of Hellenism’.62 Even in admittedly ‘hard’ cases, such as the mixed town of Korce (Korytza), Cassavetes argued that the superiority of

54See Cassavetes, The Question of Northern Epirus, pp. 54–59. 55E. J. Dillon, Contemporary Review, April 1903; cited in Cassavetes, The Question of Northern Epirus, p. 42. 56Ibid., p. 44. 57Cassavetes, Epirus and Albania, p. 21. 58N. J. Cassavetes, ‘Northern Epirus and the principle of nationality’, International Conciliation, 141, August 1919, p. 903. 59Ibid., p. 901. 60Cassavetes, The Question of Northern Epirus, p. 75. 61Ibid., p. 111. 62Ibid. Themes—Power politics and nationalist discourse 159

Greek culture and civilization justied the town’s absorption into Greece.63 Given the Albanians’ inferior status, it would be foolish for the Great Powers to place the ‘civilized’ Greek Epirotes under their rule. In Cassavetes’ words: If the Christians are put under one and the same government with a vast majority of these ignorant and fanatic Moslems, will it not be natural for them to deal with the Christians in the standard Moslem method—as ‘inferiors’, as ‘slaves’, as ‘rayas’ (emphasis added)?64 Thus, according to Cassavetes, the only solution compatible with the legitimate ‘principle of nationality’ required that the ‘genuine’ will of the ‘civilized’ Greek Epirotes be recognized and that ‘Northern Epirus’ be absorbed into the Kingdom of Greece. To ignore the Epirotes’ will would mean abandoning President Wilson’s commitment to the self-determination of peoples and the grounding of diplomacy in justice. The ofcial Greek position on ‘Northern Epirus’ echoed Cassavetes’, particularly in terms of its rejection of race as a suitable means of establishing the national character of the ‘Epirotes’. The chief Greek representatives at the Peace Conference, Prime Minister Venizelos and Foreign Minister Politis, argued that the ‘will of the people’ ought to decide the question. In Politis’ words: The national aspirations of Greece may be summed up in a single phrase: the application, pure and simple, of the principle for which the war has been fought and on the basis of which the peace is to be made—the great principle of the right of peoples to dispose of themselves.65 Added to this was Venizelos’ claim that the security and economic viability of Greece and the Greek minority in ‘Northern Epirus’ depended on the incorporation of the disputed territory into the Greek state. If ‘Northern Epirus’ ‘[w]ere given to Albania … Janina would be cut off from three important trade arteries, Koritza, Argyrocastro, and Santi Quaranta … [Moreover,] Koritza would be completely isolated from her two main markets, Janina and Monastir-Sa- lonika’.66 From the strategic point of view, the Greeks argued that the Acrocer- aunian Mountains should form the boundary between Albania and Greek Epirus.67 Anything less would leave Greece dangerously exposed to attack from the north.

Assessing the impact of Greek and Albanian nationalist appeals

Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:00 3 April 2010 Ultimately, the appeals, both ofcial and unofcial, of Greek and Albanian nationalists played a rather limited role in the Great Powers’ nal decision regarding the delimitation of Albania’s southern frontier. In the end, neither side’s maximum demands were satised. That said, nationalist arguments did

63In Cassavetes’ words: ‘If we are to consider not only the number of heads but what is inside them, the case for union with Greece becomes clear. Here [in Korce], as elsewhere in Northern Epirus, the Progressive and civilizing elements are those that desire a Greek future, and there can be little doubt that the town will be better off as part of an ordered and established state than as part of one that is likely for many years to be unsettled and turbulent.’ Cassavetes, ‘Northern Epirus and the principle of nationality’, p. 910. 64Cassavetes, The Question of Northern Epirus, p. 46. 65Cited in Stickney, op. cit., p. 77. 66Ibid., p. 88. 67Ibid. 160 Triadalos Triadalopoulos

preclude some of the arrangements offered by the diplomats in Paris. For example, France and Britain initially accepted most of the Greek delegation’s claims68 and on 14 January 1920 presented a memorandum calling for the absorption of ‘Northern Epirus’ into Greece. The same plan awarded parts of Northern Albania to the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and made the remainder of Albania an Italian protectorate.69 After receiving news of the memorandum, Wilson rejected it outright, noting that ‘[t]he memorandum … partitions the Albanian people against their vehement protests, among three different alien powers (emphasis added)’.70 Clearly, Wilson was serious about putting an end to some of the worst excesses of the ‘old diplomacy’. After months of diplomatic wrangling, during which Albania successfully applied for membership in the League of Nations,71 the nal decision of the Conference of Ambassadors was announced. The declaration, signed by Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, and issued on 9 November 1921, reafrmed Albania’s 1913 boundaries, as set by the Protocol of Florence.72 The League of Nations afrmed the decision and pledged to uphold Albania’s territorial integrity.73 However, as Louis Sigalos notes: ‘This declaration in reality established Italy as the guardian of Albania with the League Council deciding when Italy was to assume the role of Guardian.’74 In effect, then, the other Great Powers accepted Italy’s demand that Albania remain within its sphere of inuence, so long as Italian troops stayed off Albanian territory.75 The ‘old diplomacy’ had simply been replaced by a more nuanced variant that implied respect for small nations and yet allowed the Great Powers to dictate the terms of interstate relations according to their interests.76 Not surprisingly, then, nationalist propaganda played a relatively minor role in this system.

68Britain and France were initially supportive of Greece because they did not favour the extension of Italian power in the Balkans. According to Harold Nicolson, the British attitude ‘was clouded by a doubt [as to] whether it was wise, if Italy were to obtain a foothold in Albania, to give her the strategic advantages of Koritza and the Santi Quaranta road which was in fact the only line of communication between Janina and Salonika’. H. Nicolson, Peacemaking 1919, Grosset & Dunlap, London, 1965, p. 174. 69L. Sigalos, The Greek Claims on Northern Epirus, Argonaut, Chicago, 1963, p. 50. 70Ibid., p. 51. 71For a detailed analysis of Albania’s application to the League of Nations, see Stickney, op. cit., Chapter 7. 72Joseph Swire, Albania: The Rise of a Kingdom, Williams & Norgate, London, 1929, pp. 366–367. 73Ibid., p. 369. Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:00 3 April 2010 74Sigalos, op. cit., p. 57. Also see Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, p. 318. 75See ‘Declaration by the Governments of the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan in Regard to Albania’, signed at Paris, 9 November 1921, in League of Nations, Treaty Series, Vol. XII, No. 383, 1922. The Italians’ control over Albania’s fortunes was formalized with the signing of the Pact of Friendship and Security on 27 November 1926. In the words of historian T. Zavalani: ‘It was clear that the pact made Italy the supreme foreign force in Albania, and there could be little doubt that Italy wanted to take over the country.’ T. Zavalani, ‘Albanian nationalism’, in P. F. Sugar and I. O. Lederer (eds), Nationalism in Eastern Europe, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1969, p. 85. 76It is worth emphasizing that the liberal-internationalis t spirit that had characterized Western public opinion during and immediately after the war waned considerably during the course of the negotiations, particularly in the United States, where President Wilson’s bid for America’s entry into the League of Nations was defeated by isolationists in Congress. As Gordon Craig and Alexander George have noted, Wilson went from being a man hailed as a world saviour in 1918, to a broken individual forced to sit passively as his ‘design for a democratic world system [was] rejected by an American electorate whose ardor for a role in the world community cooled when its perspective costs were realized’. Wilson’s loss of prestige at home badly weakened his stature among European Themes—Power politics and nationalist discourse 161

Conclusion Nationalist claims are shaped by prevailing rules of discourse. Historically, these rules have been established by centres of power. In the immediate post-First World War era, nationalist claims were greatly inuenced by the Great Powers’ endorsement of the right of national self-determination. This doctrine facilitated the dismemberment of multiethnic empires and sanctied the nation-state concept. The division of Europe along national lines was advanced as a way of both promoting peace and extending the interests of the European powers. This dubious marriage of justice and Realpolitik greatly inuenced nationalist writers in small, peripheral states. The texts analysed here suggest that Greek and Albanian nationalists were well aware of precisely what those wielding power expected to hear. Their conception of the nation and claims to territory were calculated to strike a responsive chord among the diplomats in Paris. This relationship between nationalist writers in the ‘semi-periphery’ and their audience in the ‘core’ has not received adequate recognition among scholars. Arguments such as those made by Cassavetes, Konitza, the Dakos and the ofcial Greek and Albanian representatives at the Paris Peace Confer- ence are typically denigrated as products of the ‘Balkan imagination’. This position fails to appreciate the shared nature of nationalist discourse. The texts surveyed here were not conceived of in a vacuum. Rather, they drew on popular theories and beliefs held by Western intellectuals, political e´lites, and diplomats. Indeed, the debate was not over the legitimacy of ‘pure’ states and ‘just’ territorial frontiers; it was over which groups could legitimately claim these privileges. Moreover, the struggle between Greek and Albanian nationalist was not exclusively over territory. It was also over the right to lay aside the mantle of cultural inferiority and claim membership within the ‘civilized’ community of European states. More recently, the new states emerging out of the wreckage of Yugoslavia and the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe have been eager to take up residence West of the civilizational divide.77 Contemporary nationalists in these countries have appropriated the language of civilizational values to promote their nations’ compatibility with the West.78 Initially, this would appear to be a positive development. However, as Adam Burgess has pointed out: Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:00 3 April 2010 Given the difculties of conforming to idealized standards of attention, the most readily available means of getting attention and suggesting acceptance is deni- grating one’s neighbors as unredeemably backward and Eastern—in order to shine in comparison.… [It] is precisely through the language of a unique capacity to

diplomats, who preferred the ‘old diplomacy’ to the new. See G. A. Craig and A. L. George, Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems of Our Time, Oxford University Press, New York, 1983, pp. 61, 70; and T. A. Bailey, Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace, Quadrangle Books, Chicago, 1963. For accounts of European diplomats’ reactions to Wilson’s defeat at home, see G. A. Craig and F. Gilbert (eds), The Diplomats: 1919–1939, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1953. 77As Slavoj Zizek has noted, East European nationalists are principally interested in ‘the struggle for one’s place: who will be admitted–integrated into the developed capitalist order–and who will be excluded’. S. Zizek, ‘Ethnic Danse Macabre’, The Guardian, 28 August 1992. 78A. Burgess, ‘National minority rights and the “civilizing” of Eastern Europe’, Contention, 2, Winter 1996, p. 27. 162 Triadalos Triadalopoulos

embody civilized European standards that much of East European nationalism is expressed.… As the test of inclusion is largely in the language of civilized conduct, every party tends toward the promotion of its own special qualities, and in the process cements national prejudices against its ‘barbaric’ neighbours (emphasis added).79 Burgess’s argument is rendered all the more persuasive when we examine the discourse emanating from contemporary nationalist circles. According to a manifesto published in the journal of the Croatian Democratic Union, the party’s victory in the 1990 election marked the inclusion [of Croatia] in the states of central Europe, the region to which it has always belonged, except for the recent past when balkanisms and the forcibly self-proclaimed national representatives have constantly subordinated the Croatian state territory to an asiatic form of government, while the justied anger and protests of certain Croatians have been qualied as terrorism and even fascism.80 Burgess’s linking of contemporary integral nationalism to the discourse of ‘Western’ values strikes a blow to cruder interpretations, which tend to draw a heavy line between nationalists and their audience; between the members of tribes and their civilized counterparts in ‘the West’.81 Greater recognition of this fallacy should allow us to relax the rigid distinctions between types of nationalism and encourage more studies on the substance of nationalist claims.82 For the ‘imaginative’ exercise that underlies the creation and reinvention of national identities is inuenced by both ideas and political forces that transcend state borders.83

Triadalos Triadalopoulos is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the New School for Social Research in New York City. He is a contributor to the forthcoming Oxford Dictionary of the Social Sciences and has published articles in Citizenship Studies, East European Quarterly, and The Journal of Politics.

Address for correspondence: 103 Cummer Avenue, Willowdale, Ontario M2M 2E6. Canada.

79Ibid., pp. 27–28. 80Cited in M. Bakic-Hayden and R. Hayden, ‘Orientalist variations on the theme “Balkans”: Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:00 3 April 2010 symbolic geography in recent Yugoslav cultural politics’, Slavic Review, 1, Spring 1992, p. 9. 81For an example of this approach see R. D. Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History, Vintage Books, New York, 1994. 82My argument here is not that we should drop the various conceptual categories used to classify nationalist identities or movements. Rather, we must go beyond these categories and examine the distinctly political forces (international and domestic) that drive nationalist movements. 83As Elizabeth Prodromou has pointed out, the post-Cold War national security discourse emphasizing the ‘democratic peace’ and the ‘civilizational paradigm’ have been extremely inuential in terms of inuencing the West’s perception of other countries’ identities, particularly in the Balkans. Commenting on the Greek case, Prodromou notes that ‘because the integrative logic of the democratic peace and the civilizational paradigm suggests that post-Cold War security strategy will give equal weight to cultural and religious variables, on the one hand, and to political, economic, and geostrategic variables, on the other, the Eastern Christian aspects of modern Greek culture have created a perception paradox for Greece vis-a`-vis its European Union partners’. See ‘The perception paradox of post-Cold War security in Greece’, in G. T. Allison and K. Nicolaidis (eds), The Greek Paradox, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997, p. 125.